What If ...

[JABBS]

Today, JABBS begins an occasional series, "What If ..."

Here's today's question:

What if Osama Bin Laden wasn't a Saudi? Say he and his followers of (Russian, Libyan, Cuban, etc..) heritage attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. Assuming all else is equal (protection from the Taliban, a history of attacking U.S. interests abroad, etc.) what would President Bush have done?

There is no right or wrong answer. Liberals, conservatives and moderates -- how do you respond?

You can answer here, or you can answer at JABBS, or both.

[terrya]

1. We wouldn't have been so quick to go into Iraq.

Oh, if the person behind 09/11 was a Libyan, you bet we would have had a more serious committment to finding him.

The fact that Osama Bin Laden is Saudi, from a very promienent and power family in Saudi Arabia (even though he is the black sheep of the Bin Laden family) with links to the Saudi Royal Family...let's say that all of that is a bit problemmatic for Bush and the Bush family...as all of us certainly knows.

[jbane]

2. He would not be a billionaire and could only do so much.

Bin Laden has bankrolled the whole Al Queda enterprize. without his money, they'd be just another pissed off, dirty-ass, car-bomb driving, IslamaNazis.

[VPStoltz]

3. Considering the * administration went out of its way

to transport all of the Bin Laden family members out of the country on 9/12&13, I'd say they had a vested interest in making sure nothing too horrible happened to Osama right away.

[illflem]

4. He would have bombed the hell out of Cuba or Libya

just like Afghanistan but would have left Russia alone simply because they have nukes.

[Kipling]

5. More or less the same. He's only an excuse, not a major factor.

[Alva Goldbook]

6. check this out.

<a href="http://nitwitplanet.blogspot.com/2005/08/politics-of-jesus-and-oxymoron-that-is_20.html"> The Politics of Jesus And The Oxymoron That Is “The Christian Right”.</a>

[akarnitz]

7. Depends on military strength and population...

of the sheltering nation. If Russia or China was sheltering an OBL, there's no way in hell there'd be an invasion. Economic sanctions or
covert ops. assassinations, maybe.

If OBL were in Pakistan(right next door to the actual culprit), no invasion. Brazil, no invasion. Uruguay would have hell to pay. So would Nepal, but not India. IMHO.

Harry Turtledove writes alternative history(fiction, of course). I'd love to see him write on this topic.

[JABBS]

8. That's a good point.

But is Saudi Arabia a country that we could not attack, either in the way we did attack Iraq, or in some surgical strike kind of way?